


I'll Make The Starlight Circle The Room

by AndreaLyn



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 07:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18278933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: Friday night is poker night, but this week isn't like any of the others. Michael's got a weird nervous energy that Alex can't place and everyone is acting stranger than usual.





	I'll Make The Starlight Circle The Room

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from _Someone To You_ by BANNERS.

Michael is the one who makes Friday night into poker night. 

When Alex brings up that Isobel can influence people’s decisions and Michael is halfway to being a professional gambler from how often he swindles the locals, his boyfriend waves off his concerns. “It’s a place for our friends to enjoy themselves, drink, and we eat pizza.” He doesn’t mention the fact that most Fridays, they go home with Michael’s pockets lined with more cash than before and their friends too drunk to notice.

Alex notices, though. 

Then again, Alex isn’t sure he cares, because he loves watching Michael get away with it and the thrill that goes hand in hand. Some nights, Alex doesn’t join the game, preferring to sit with Liz and Maria and talk on the outside. The best nights are the ones where Max gets _so frustrated_ with Michael’s winning that he accuses Isobel of helping him cheat, which only makes the two of them laugh even more. Michael’s always beaming with joy those nights, awash in family and friends and _cash_.

This Friday, Michael’s adamant that Alex is a part of the game.

“Come on, I love playing with you in the game. It makes it extra exciting getting away with footsie while I’m stealing everyone’s money,” he says, waggling his brows as he sets the beer on the table. 

The trouble is, Alex isn’t sure. It’s been a long week at the base. While Alex is in full training mode with the new recruits and it’s good enough knowing he won’t be deployed (because that would mean Michael trotting off after him and he knows how much that would break his heart to leave his family), it still leaves him needing a pick-me-up at the end of a long week of repeating himself again and again. He’d kind of been hoping that Michael would bail on poker so they could curl up on the couch with a blanket and watch shitty 90’s rom-coms while lazily making out. 

Michael had insisted they come to poker, because it’s _tradition_. Not only that, but he keeps going on about Alex being in the game, so he’s got a one-track mind right now and it’s not on any of the things Alex wants it on.

“Really?” Alex groans, wrapping his arms around Michael’s waist as he buries his face in Michael’s neck. “Can’t you just not play? I could use a night of curling up and watching Kyle’s eye twitch every time Max wins.”

There’s something like desperation in Michael’s eyes when Alex eases back, so his suggestion definitely didn’t land. 

“It’s been ages since you’ve played,” Michael’s starting to sound panicked and he’s glancing around like he might need backup. “Just a couple of hands, okay?” He leans in, biting his lip. “I didn’t want to say it too loud, but I kind of like the way you get hyper-focused when you have a good hand. It’s sexy. Couple hands,” he murmurs, voice low, “and then we can take a trip to the bathroom.”

Alex’s exhaustion is quickly being eroded by Michael’s desperate (and increasingly effective) attempts at convincing him. Alex leans in to press a soft kiss to the corner of Michael’s lips. “Fine,” he allows. “You’re paying for my buy in, though.”

“I’ll pay for your everything,” Michael agrees, buzzing with energy as he heads to the table. “Alex is in!” he says.

Max and Isobel seem _really_ pleased about that fact. 

Alex rolls his eyes, figuring it’s because they think they’re going to clean him out. Typical Evans behavior. They think they’re better than the rest of them. Liz joins them to round out the fivesome while Jenna, Kyle, and Maria work on getting the snacks ready. Noah’s acting as dealer, because he’s the responsible one and never gambles away his money (at least, not when Isobel is doing it for them).

For the first few hands, everything’s pretty normal. Michael and Alex sit on opposite sides of the table and while Michael definitely attempts some footsie, he goes stray at one point from the murderous look on Max’s face. 

Around the fourth round, Alex starts yawning when the week starts to catch up to him. That’s when Michael’s buzzing energy turns frantic, almost manic. The table is shaking and he’s pretty sure that it’s because of Michael bouncing his knee against it. His pot of chips has been slowly dwindling, which is weird, because Michael’s been taking risks and losing hands that he normally wouldn’t.

If he’s not careful, he’s going to be out of the game soon.

Then again, then Alex could just go all-in on a bad hand and his plan to lazily make out on the couch can come to life, so maybe he should be hoping for that. Still, when he looks at his hand and sees the _great_ cards, he also has too much stubborn pride to throw it away for this. He's staring at two jacks, three aces.

It’s a winning hand if he’s ever seen one.

The pot is starting to creep up, too, which makes Alex think that he could definitely walk away the winner if he plays his cards right. It’s always Michael or Max who win big, one of the two of them, though Maria has a tendency to collect when she deigns to play. 

He’s so caught up in his hand that he barely notices the weird things happening around him. The silent conversation that Michael seems to have with his eyes alone with Isobel, the way Max gently nudges Liz and nods towards Alex, and the way the table shops shaking. Later, he’ll remember those things happened.

At the time, Alex is furiously trying to keep from giving away his hand.

“I’m out,” Liz says, an overly dramatic sigh. 

“Yeah, I think I’m gonna live to see the next round,” Max adds, tapping his cards on the table.

With just Isobel, Alex, and Michael left, he waits for Isobel, watching Michael stare at her with hawk-like intensity.

“Let me think,” she protests.

“Isobel,” Michael snaps.

“Fine! Fine, I’m out,” she replies irritably. She reaches over and yanks on Michael’s ear, making him yelp, but clearly whatever animosity is between them ends when Isobel drapes her arm Max’s shoulder and watches Michael with a proud smile on her face.

It's him and Michael now, which means he can definitely win this. He just needs to test the waters, see what kind of hand Michael has (because despite what everyone else thinks, Alex can read him like an open book).

“So,” Alex prods, heart pounding in his chest as he tries to keep from revealing how good his hand is, “you and me.”

“Yeah, you and me,” Michael agrees. He tips his head to the side and for the first time, Alex notices that his hair looks better than it usually does. The curls are really nicely done and it even looks like he’s shaved a little. In fact, even his clothes look a little sharper than usual. He’s wearing the sweater Alex loves so much, a black long-sleeved one that clings to him in all the right places and a pair of jeans that hang low on his hips. “You feeling good about that?”

“Are you asking me to talk about our cards in front of other people?” he plays along with a sly smirk. “What if I don’t want anyone else here knowing how good the cards we have between us are, especially when the right ones fit in all the right places?”

“Oh, we know,” Liz deadpans. “You’re not quiet about it.”

“Some of us miss the quiet pining,” Kyle adds, but shuts up when Cameron elbows him in the side so hard that the air’s pushed out of him.

“You think you’re going to top me?”

There’s a crowd-wide ‘whoa!’ and a ‘too far’ from Maria, but Alex is laughing because Michael’s grinning, tapping his cards against the table. “I dunno, private,” Michael drawls. “Are you trying to make me fold?”

Alex shrugs, playing the innocent card. “You could always call. Then again,” he says, pointing to Michael’s very sad pile. “If we wanted to talk serious money here, I think you missed the boat on that one. I mean, seriously? You let Max somehow take a hand with two nines.”

“They were good nines,” Max protests.

“They were nines,” Alex repeats.

Michael’s gnawing his lower lip with his teeth, the way he does when he’s working a problem. Alex leans forward, not blinking, trying to will Michael to fold his hand so that he can walk away with the pot. 

“Come on,” he says, pitching his voice lower. “You want to make me happy, right?”

Just when Alex thinks he’s won with that low blow and Michael’s out, something strange happens. “I’m gonna raise,” he insists.

“With what?” Alex immediately replies, not sure what’s going on. Michael is down to his last chip and that’s not enough to raise, but Michael doesn’t seem dissuaded. Alex looks around to see if Isobel or Max are going to boot him from the round for not following the rules, but where they previously seemed like sticklers about this sort of thing, now they’re amused and watching with fond pride.

It’s clear why they look that way when Michael stops shifting and rummaging through his pockets, unearthing something from their depths. “Ha! Knew I had it,” he says, and plunks down a very pretty, very platinum, very shiny engagement ring. “I raise.”

Everyone else is out of the game. It’s just him and Michael, and suddenly, the full house in his hands feels more important than it had a moment ago. His heart pounds in his chest and he looks at their friends. Liz and Max and Isobel are practically threaded together, watching hopefully, Kyle and Maria are hovering nearby and Jenna’s filming with her phone. Noah’s practically bursting with eagerness, leaning forward to see what happens next. 

“We’re allowing this?”

Max hides his smile behind his folded cards, but it’s Liz who replies. “If you are, we are.”

“I’m all in,” Michael says, catching Alex’s eye and though it applies to his current situation with funds, there’s a different meaning in the way he says it. 

Alex’s brain works on autopilot, shoving the rest of his chips into the pot. “All in,” he agrees, echoing Michael’s sentiment. He doesn’t want to be playing this game. He wants that ring in his hands, Michael pressed against the nearest horizontal surface, and he wants to know why Michael didn’t bother to warn him so Alex could get one for him. 

“Ready?” Max prods. “What’ve you got?”

He thinks that years from now, he’ll remember the joy that feels like it bursts out of him when he lays down his cards. Full house, jacks and aces staring back at him. He doesn’t blink as he waits for Michael to reveal his hand, but he’s not disappointed when it happens.

Two, two fours, a five, and a single ace.

Alex laughs instantly, overcome with the joy of it that it surprises him with how loud it sounds. His eyes are rimmed with happy tears (with a shade of disbelief) as he reaches forward to collect on his winnings, including that ring. Now he understands why everyone’s been acting so weird tonight. Now he gets why Michael had been so adamant to make him play.

“You don’t want the words? I had a really great speech,” Michael protests.

“Later,” Alex says, because while he wants to hear it, he also doesn’t want his friends eavesdropping on something that’s meant to be between them. “I kind of want to go celebrate my big win. You know anywhere?”

The room fades away and no one else exists but the two of them. 

“Not the bathroom,” comes Max’s sharp warning.

“Home?” Alex suggests. He takes the ring into his fingers and very slowly, deliberately, slides the ring onto his hand, watching the way Michael’s eyes heatedly track the movement, breathing out slowly as he thinks about getting his hand on Michael’s cock with that ring on…

From the way Michael is looking at him, Alex isn’t the only one having those thoughts. 

“Yeah, uh, maybe you guys could excuse us,” Michael says, pushing his chair away from the table so fast that it topples, not even bothering to stop it with his powers as he rounds the table to yank Alex to his feet, “we’ve got some serious celebrating to do and since someone banned us from having sex in the bathroom…”

They probably deserve all the popcorn, cards, and assorted items thrown at them, but Alex can’t exactly think beyond “ _all in_ ” and he doesn’t plan to start.

* * *

Later, stretched out over Michael, Alex glances back to the mess of blankets and the way the ring on his hand glints in the light where it rests on Michael’s chest. “What if you’d won that hand and got your ring back? Or what if one of the others had a good hand?”

“What am I, new? I cheated. I made sure I had a hand full of duds so no matter what, you’d beat me. Once I was ready, I kicked Max to let him know to get out of the game. He made sure Liz started us off, then I just had to get Isobel out without her insisting on making it look _natural_.” He slides his palm up Alex’s forearm until their hands are pressed together, Michael’s fingers continuing until their hands are pressed together, the stretch of fingertip to fingertip. “So, you like it?”

“It’s beautiful,” he admits. It’s simple and elegant with a mainly consistent outer band, speckled with stars and inside is inscribed _we are for each other_ , a poem that Alex had found once and felt right to his soul. “How’d you afford it?” Because it’s definitely more than a mechanic could buy (at least with the salary Sanders pays him) and Michael had promised that he’d stopped selling off stray items from the junkyard.

Michael doesn’t look guilty, though. In fact, he looks pretty pleased with himself.

“What?” Alex laughs, tangling his fingers into Michael’s hair to mess up those curls a little more. 

“We started playing poker with our friends about eight months ago.” Michael folds their fingers together and presses a kiss to the ring finger. “I wanted to make sure that I was saving up for something nice.”

All that time, all that money, Michael’s been saving up for this. He’s been planning this for eight months, with Alex none the wiser. God, he’s so happy their friends are suckers because this is the best outcome that he could’ve ever hoped for out of a Friday night game. He’s got the winnings, the ring, and the fiancé. 

Alex doesn’t want to brag, but he’s pretty sure that’s the best anyone’s ever going to do out of one of those games. “Hey,” Michael murmurs. “You wanna go all in again? I’m pretty sure I know something that can top me.”

Yeah, thinks Alex. There’s no one in the world as lucky as he is, not tonight.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm over on [Tumblr](http://andrea-lyn.tumblr.com/) and will likely be opening up to some prompts soon, so keep an eye out, or just come join me in my ever-descending spiral into this 'ship.


End file.
